


Taking the Black

by RogueBelle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Rating: PG13, Speculation, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-14
Updated: 2011-04-14
Packaged: 2017-10-18 01:42:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/183590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueBelle/pseuds/RogueBelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Westerosi Wars are over, two lions ride north to take advantage of a Queen's mercy and pledge themselves to the Black.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Taking the Black

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a speculation challenge at livejournal.com/westerosorting.

There was no Wall, but there was still a Black.

Jaime supposed he ought to be grateful for that. If there hadn't been a Black to send him to, he'd likely have ended up with his head on a pike and the rest of him somewhere in the digestive tract of a dragon. Queen Daenerys had proved herself merciful, within reason. Those who truly repented had been forgiven in appropriate degree to their transgressions, but those who played the new Queen false...

They had all expected clemency for Tommen. He was still a very young man, had been only a child when set atop the Iron Throne, a throne he had never really wanted. Queen Daenerys had seemed almost apologetic about sending him to the North, but for as far as her mercy extended, she would be no prudent monarch if she kept other claimants to the throne about her. His was a banishment of necessity.

Tommen, for his part, was bearing the exile with good grace. It helped that the hefty Maester Samwell had taken him under his wing, and promised the boy a good position among the stewards, where he could write messages and look after ravens. "You'll like it," the Maester had promised. "I know I did."

So Tommen's benign exile had been easy to understand, but there were few in all Westeros who knew why the fiery Queen had not incinerated her father's murderer on the spot. But the Queen knew, and Jaime knew, and that was good enough for him. Perhaps far in the thawing North, helping to rebuild what had been destroyed, he could finally put it all behind him – forget the years of blood, forget the phantom sensations from his missing hand, forget perfect cheeks turning blue and purple, forget the feel of a throat crushing under those fingers he had left...

"I remember the last time I was here." Tommen's voice beside him brought Jaime out of his reverie. Jaime had still not gotten used to hearing a man's voice out of him, out of this young lion he still could not think of as 'son'. "Before it all started. It was so warm then, and Myrcella and I..." He looked down, twisted his horse's reins in his hands. "Well, we were so little. We thought that summer might go on forever."

Jaime remembered, too, that last trip North, and as they approached Winterfell, or what was left of it, he felt no great desire to renew old acquaintances. It could hardly be avoided, though; the Starks were back, resilient as ever, and he would be serving at the border under a Stark called Snow. First, however, he would have to pay respects to the new Lord of Winterfell, who looked likely to become known to the ages as Lord Brandon the Second Builder, but who Jaime remembered as a child clinging to the stony sides of a high-up window.

~~*~~

Most of Winterfell remained a shell of blackened stone. Jaime had heard that Brandon Stark was focusing his efforts first on the Wall, taking his duties towards preventing a recurrence of the Other invasion more seriously than the restitution of his own home.

Still, a great lord's castle could not be left a city of tents and shacks, and so some improvements had begun. Lord Brandon had begun his rebuilding efforts where any sensible man would, with the inner keep. There, what had been irrevocably damaged had been replaced with new stone, shining grey, bright spots amidst the smoke-stains. The hall had been refurnished; fresh banners of grey and white adorned the walls, and new long tables ran along the sides of the room. There were fewer benches than there had been when the Lannisters had last visited, but Jaime supposed they had less need to sup so many guests as once they had.

Lord Brandon was still a young man, Tommen's age, but his eyes bespoke a far advanced age – a quality which discomfited Jaime more than he liked to admit. The young Lord of Winterfell was not one of those men, always so common in King's Landing, who wanted you to believe they knew so much but never had anything more than gossip or guesses. Brandon Stark had been places no other man in Westeros had, seen things no other man in Westeros had seen, and knew things no other man in Westeros knew. He did not flaunt this knowledge, perhaps because he never had to, and somehow that rankled Jaime more than anything else; smug superiority he could have dealt with, but Stark's preternatural calm set his teeth on edge.

Stark sat in the lord's chair, with another young man at his side. Jaime vaguely recalled another brother yet living, one he could only remember as a toddling babe. If Lord Brandon's eyes held wisdom, then the younger Stark's held wildness. His eyes, the same blue as his brother's, the same blue as long-dead Catelyn Tully's, darted about the room, shifting focus at the slightest stimulus, from the flutter of a banner to a mouse rustling the rushes to the dust in the sunlight through the window. He was garbed as befit the younger brother of the Lord of Winterfell, yet somehow had the look of a fierce and untamed creature, as though such civilized things as clothes did not belong on his lithe, wiry frame.

And of course, there were the wolves, as massive as ever. _'Damn the things,'_ he thought, reflexively, before taking it back. Those wolves, eldritch creatures though they might be, had aided in the salvation of Westeros. The grey beast at Lord Brandon's side sat as still and spookily calm as its master, but the brown monstrosity beside the brother stood with its hackles raised, snarling at the Lannisters as they came down the hall towards the dais. Jaime expected Tommen to startle or shy away as they neared the men and their wolves, but he continued on without any external show of fear. _'Good lad,'_ Jaime thought, with a faint twinge of something that might have been pride; Tommen had always been a fearful child, but years at the center of the storm had changed many things.

"My lords of Lannister," Brandon Stark said, in a bright, clear voice, "welcome to Winterfell, such as it is. You will forgive me for not rising."

Jaime managed not to wince at that reference to the young man's useless legs, useless by his own actions, yet there was no indication in Stark's tone or expression that indicated he meant it as a reminder to Jaime, not a condemnation nor a jab of sarcasm. Tommen and Jaime both bowed, as Tommen said, "We thank you for your welcome, Lord Brandon, though I fear we are no longer lords of Lannister as you say."

Stark smiled, not in mockery, but in genuine warmth. "You may have renounced your titles, but you are still scions of an old and noble house – whatever the actions of some of its members in the past, or, indeed, in your own. I take the exoneration of the Black quite seriously, the renunciation of family less so."

"Your brother," Tommen said, in understanding.

"Indeed. He may have begun life as a Snow and found himself made Lord Commander, but he remains my brother, by blood and by soul. And so you will remain, in my eyes at least, lords of Lannister."

Tommen's smile grew from polite to pleased, and Jaime thought, not for the first time, of how things might have been different things might have been. These two young men, so close in age, so different in experience, might have been friends. Fosterages could have been arranged, the wolf and lion fellows instead of foes.

 _'And that blame lies at my doorstep as well,'_ Jaime considered, sourly. _'My actions to Catelyn Tully's vengeance to Tyrion's haste to the North's rebellion... All of it, because of me.'_ And then another thought, even more bitter, _'No. Not because of me. Because of her.'_ Golden hair and golden skin and red, red lips, breathing their last...

Exoneration, Stark had said. Jaime was still convincing himself to believe in it.

~~*~~

When it came time for the Lannisters to depart, heading for points even farther north than Winterfell, Lord Brandon met them on horseback to give them farewell. His direwolf prowled unconcernedly at his side, pausing now and then to investigate an unfamiliar scent.

"I am sorry we did not have the chance to pay our respects to Lady Sansa," Tommen said, as he adjusted the saddle on his own mount. "Though I understand, with all that has..." A slight flush touched his cheeks. "Well, I can see how she would not wish to meet with us."

"I assure you, she would hold nothing against you, Tommen," Brandon replied. "I believe she remembers you fondly." Jaime noticed there was no similar consolation for himself; perhaps, if he had ever been able to fulfill his oath to Lady Catelyn... but that was another broken path, another missed opportunity, and attached to too many painful memories. "I promise, it was no prejudice that kept her, only her health. She remains... frail."

Jaime hardly listened as the former king and the new lord exchanged further pleasantries and well-wishes, choosing to attend with meticulous care to his horse. Soon enough, Tommen was astride and trotting towards the gate.

Jaime mounted as well, meaning to be on the road and on the rest of his journey as soon as possible – no sense prolonging the inevitable, now he was committed to this course – but once Tommen was out of earshot, Brandon turned to Jaime, drawing himself up quite straight in the saddle. "I had a letter from the Queen," he said. "She explained the nature of your... atonement."

Jaime had nothing to say to that; it did not surprise him that Queen Daenerys had written to Brandon Stark as well as his brother the Lord Commander of the Watch. And if anyone had a right to know, perhaps it was the boy, now this man, against whom Jaime had committed just one of many grievous sins. _'For her sake, all for her sake...'_

"I want you to know... I hold no grudge, Jaime Lannister," Lord Brandon said, a strange, small smile on his face. "In fact, I thank you. If you had not broken my back, I would never have learned how to fly."

With no further clarification on that bewildering statement, Stark wheeled his horse around and took off. As he cantered away from the stables, through the makeshift gates, he did not keep to the road, but bore his mount off into the woods, his massive direwolf loping at his side.


End file.
